


coup de foudre

by aelbereth



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Medieval Medicine, Multi, Sickfic, not a good idea, silly cutie pies in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-21
Updated: 2016-03-21
Packaged: 2018-05-28 05:20:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6316207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aelbereth/pseuds/aelbereth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I'm sorry, Chetta, but you're in quarantine. We're going to cure you. For now, please eat your soup."</p>
            </blockquote>





	coup de foudre

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shellcollector](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shellcollector/gifts).



> All French is explained/translated in the end notes, as well as some notes on the cures. Warning for a brief panic attack.
> 
> Thank you for the prompt, shellcollector! This was really fun to research and write.

Bossuet always blames it on the lightning. "It was my second time," he'll say, "and two is an unlucky number!" Musichetta will chuckle and remind him that two is actually one of his lucky numbers. She would Know.

 

This will lead to some puns ("What is the  _chance_ of that happening?" "Two many times, I'll say!") and a general acknowledgement that, yes, Chetta Knows everything. Half an hour later, when they're snuggled by the fire, swaddled in every quilt they own and covered by Bossuet's wings, Joly will think of another 'cure' just as he falls asleep. They'll be happy, and it will be nothing but a funny memory.

 

It, of course, being the fateful day Joly's fears came true.

 

 

<3

 

The lightning struck their cottage on a Thursday. It hit the roof, travelled down the shimmering vines covering the walls, and filled the house with light. Bossuet's feathers got singed, and Musichetta's hair frizzed beyond belief. Joly's potion boiled far too early and bubbled all over the floor.

 

When the final sparks had died away, Chetta sighed. "Well, today has been kind of a tra- _jeudi_. I Knew I should have bought us a lightning rod."

 

Bossuet shook out his wings carefully. "It's not too bad. Remember the first time I was hit, without any wards up?"

 

Joly giggled from the floor, where he was cleaning up ruined potion. "You looked so weird without feathers!"

 

He stopped laughing abruptly when Musichetta sneezed.

 

<3

 

15 minutes later, Chetta was bundled up by the fire with chicken soup in hand. "I'm fine, you know." she complained. She frowned at the thermometer Joly was levitating over to her from a safe distance.

 

"Please? I need to know if you have a fever." Joly put on his best puppy eyes.

 

"Only for you, _mon petit sorcier_." She put the thermometer under her tongue.

 

Bossuet watched the mercury rise. "You  _do_ have a fever,  _chère_."

 

Joly had to sit down. This was bad. This was horrible. This was very very bad.

 

"No no nonononono, this is not good! We're all going to get it, and then all our friends will get it, and once Chetta dies everyone will follow!!"

 

His head was buzzing! He had the sickness! "How are we going to live with these symptoms for the rest of our short lives? Chetta, can you see me? Is your vision blurry??" Heart racing - that was a sign of a heart attack!

 

He couldn't _breathe_! It was in his lungs! Bossuet would have to mourn both of them!! Where was all the air? He tried to breathe, but it wasn't working!

 

He felt a slow, careful hand reaching over to touch his shoulder. "Breathe with me, Joly. Slowly. Come on: inhale... now exhale. In... and out. Can you tell me something that is true?"

 

Joly grasped at his boyfriend's hand. Why was he on the floor? "I'm in the living room. There's carpet on the floor. Your feathers are brown. Chetta is sick. Musichetta is sick!"

 

"Hey, hey, hey. Look at me, love." Bossuet carefully met his eyes. "Chetta is sick, yes. But she's been sick before. She got better. You and I are gonna help her get better again, okay?

 

Joly nodded slowly as his breaths steadied. After several minutes, he took Bossuet's hand and stood up. "I'm sorry, Chetta, but you're in quarantine. We're going to cure you. For now, please eat your soup."

 

<3

 

Joly had a lot of books on medicine. Of course, he had a lot of books on other interesting things like bee colonies and the moon, but mostly medicine. The library in the cottage was the size of a broom cupboard on the outside, but inside it was all high ceilings and shelves he  _couldn't reach_. Being short had its disadvantages.

 

He gave Bossuet a list of the books he needed that were on the high shelves, then got to work with the low ones. Once the pile in front of him was threatening to topple over, Joly was ready to research.

 

"Let's start with the humours. They're really ancient, and a lot of people don't believe in them, but I think there's some merit in balancing out the body." He flipped through a book that looked to be several centuries old. "Here we go. What are her symptoms?"

 

Bossuet ticked them off on his fingers. "Fever, sneezing - she's been coughing, too."

 

"So, hot and moist!"

 

"... Excuse me?

 

"Yeah, I know, it sounds disgusting. Humours are a pretty disgusting concept." Joly seemed far too happy to be reading a book full of gory illustrations and medieval cures. "Chetta's got an overabundance of blood, according to this. She needs to be melancholic, cold, and dry."

 

"No puns, then?" Bossuet enquired.

 

"Alas, no puns."

 

After an hour of arranging rocks around the bed while Musichetta sipped red wine, Bossuet couldn't take it any more. 

 

"You two -  _vous m'avez frappé le cœur par foudre_."

 

"That was a pretty earth-shattering pun!"

 

"Stop!" Joly cried. "No puns!"

 

But it was too late. The melancholy atmosphere was ruined.

 

"You know, Joly," Chetta pondered, "this is the only time I've ever heard you say no to a _bien jeu de mots_."

 

" _Bien joué_." He acquiesced, and then started coughing.

 

"This illness just had to have the last  _mot_." Bossuet sighed.

 

<3

 

"This is the worst thing ever to happen in the history of everything." Joly remarked between bites of Bossuet's delicious homemade chicken soup.

 

Musichetta shook her head vigorously, then winced. "I'm sure Túrin Turambar, Remus Lupin, and our own dear Feuilly would all disagree."

 

"I suppose you're right. It would be much worse if we were invaded and partitioned by incestuous werewolves."

 

"And huge dragons."

 

"And all our friends died!" Joly coughed painfully.

 

"Good thing that's never going to happen." Bossuet reassured. They all had a good laugh over the idea that all their friends would die at once.

 

After a moment, Joly realised that their boyfriend wasn't supposed to be there. " _Aigle_! You broke quarantine!"

 

And then Bossuet sneezed.

 

Everyone stopped laughing. Musichetta wrapped her arms around Joly as he held back tears. "Shhh, love," she whispered. "He'll be all right. It's not your fault." 

 

Joly didn't have the strength to argue. His cure hadn't worked, and now Bossuet was sick, too.

 

"Hey." He felt soft feathers against his cheek. "I can hug my datefriends now, 'cause we're all in quarantine!" 

 

The little witch looked both his beloveds in the eyes determinedly. "I'm going to get us better."

 

Chetta nodded. "But first, let's get a snack. I think Bossuet probably wants an _éclair_..." 

 

They laughed all the way to the kitchen.

 

<3

 

"The Earth is surrounded by a natural magnetic field." Joly drew a chalk circle on the floor, and then (as best he could) the magnetic field around it. "If we align ourselves with it," he drew three stick figures - one winged, one with poufy hair, and one with a pointy hat - "our bodies will sync up, and we'll be cured!" He drew smiles on all three stick figures.

 

"Do you know how?" Bossuet enquired.

 

"Nope. There are only so many ways we can arrange our furniture, though!" He finished his presentation with a hacking cough.

 

Two hours later, Musichetta was carrying an armchair from the library into the garden while Joly levitated the kitchen table onto the roof. Bossuet had wing-ache from ferrying furniture and was lying down. The bed was in the kitchen, of course. 

 

"I'm not sure we're doing this right." Chetta, out of breath, looked at the dishes Joly was magically holding to the ceiling.

 

"Maybe I need to read up on it more." He sighed and sent all the dishes back to their regular places. "I have some other ideas, though!"

 

<3

 

"Okay, so radiation--"

 

"NO."

 

<3

 

Joly's potion cupboard was eccentric, to say the least. Vials and beakers of various colours filled the top shelves, and strange-looking ingredients littered the bottom ones. There were bundles of herbs hanging from the doors, mushrooms growing in one corner, and a set of tiny knives. The other two residents of the cottage usually stayed far away from it.

 

Now, however, Bossuet and Musichetta watched their boyfriend as he dug through the vials and pulled out one that seemed to be boiling without any heat. "This is a spell that Jehan gave me a while back. They said it would help me, presumably with being sick, 'cause that's what I need help with."

 

Bossuet wasn't so sure. "With my luck, it's meant to help you with clearing the aphids from the garden. I'm not drinking it."

 

Joly blanched. "Oh dear - what if it is? I'd better ask them before we try it--"

 

"I don't See anything bad happening." Musichetta took the spell. "I'll drink it."

 

And she did. Nothing happened at first - no flash, no smoke, no levitation. Then she began to talk. "I love you guys. So much. You know that, right? I'm so glad I get to live with you, and love you, and spend every day with you..." She fixed Bossuet in her (very intense) gaze.

 

"Oh." Joly exclaimed. Chetta turned towards him when he spoke, and pulled him in for a kiss. It was wonderful, but he had to explain. "That's from a really, really long time ago. When I was trying to ask you two out."

 

Bossuet kissed Joly's reddening cheek. "Courage and truth, is it? That's so cute!" He took Musichetta's hand and wrapped a wing around her. "I think we should keep you inside until it wears off,  _chère_."

 

"I feel great!" Chetta steered her boyfriends towards the couch and wrapped an arm around each of them. "We should go out. I have some things to shout at Enjolras."

 

Joly put a hand on her forehead. "You're still sick. All of us are in quarantine."

 

"Anything else in those books?"

 

<3

 

"I read up on the magnetism some more. We should turn our bed around in place - there are only 360 degrees to try!"

 

"Let's let that one be, Joly."

 

<3

 

Joly hung up the phone and sighed. "R says the solution is to go out drinking with him, but we are quarantined, and I told him as much."

 

"But I like drinking with R!" Bossuet groaned.

 

"Joly, love, I think we've been defeated. We've looked through every book in that huge pile!."

 

"Wait, Chetta - what can you See?" Bossuet asked as Joly started petting his wing with a melancholy air.

 

"Just that we're going to be fine eventually. My Vision is pretty clouded."

 

"I wonder what Combeferre would do in this situation?" Joly wondered out loud.

 

Musichetta jumped up and kissed her tiny boyfriend (and then her not-so-tiny one, too). "You figured it out! We have to ask Combeferre for help!"

 

<3

 

When Combeferre arrived, he found the three of them asleep in a pile. He gently shook them awake. "So, you're all sick? Same symptoms?"

 

"Yep." Bossuet affirmed with a yawn. "We've tried everything!"

 

Combeferre listened to their hearts and breathing. "Honestly, I think it's just a run-of-the-mill virus. You three should stop running around and have a few days of bed rest. You'll be fine in no time."

 

"Ugh, you're right. We've been exerting ourselves--" Musichetta yawned, "--far too much."

 

"Thank you, moulin-medecin." Joly really wasn't awake.

 

Bossuet laughed and kissed him. "That pun was weak. We should go to bed."

 

"Yeah, you two - and I - should get a  _rh_ _ûme!_ "

 

Combeferre left quietly - they'd forgotten all about seeing him out, but that was fine. They were sick and in love.

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

>  _coup de foudre_ : lightning strike, or falling in love at first sight  
>  _chance_ : luck  
>  _jeudi_ : Thursday  
>  _mon petit sorcier_ : my little witch  
>  _chère_ : dear, darling  
>  _vous m'avez frappé le cœur par foudre_ : you hit my heart with lightning, or I fell in love with you  
>  _bien jeu de mots_ : good pun, literally word game  
>  _bien joué_ : well played  
>  _mot_ : word  
>  _aigle_ : eagle  
>  _éclair_ : delicious pastry, or lightning  
>  _moulin_ : mill  
>  _medecin_ : doctor  
>  _rhûme_ : cold (the sickness)
> 
> The 4 Humours:  
> A medical system popular in the Middle Ages. The idea was that there were four bodily fluids, or humours, that corresponded with the four elements. The sickness I wrote about here would be diagnosed as an overabundance of blood, the sanguine humour associated with air. The opposite humour, and therefore the cure, would be melancholy black bile, associated with earth. Doctors would attempt to get the patient cold and dry to balance the humours.


End file.
